Did a KJV translator make use of Codex Vaticanus text?

[logos1560]

Since Waite is obviously wrong, only a person with an unscholarly agenda would use those words as the basis of claiming emendations to the Masoretic Text.

You jump to a bogus, unscholarly, wrong conclusion.

It is not at all "unscholarly" to apply justly the claims and assertions of the leading "scholar" [D. A. Waite] for the KJV-only side. Waite's book Defending the KJB was one of the main KJV-only books which Dr. Price was answering.

Perhaps you cannot answer the scholarship of James D. Price which may explain why you try to smear him as supposedly being "unscholarly".

 

[Shoonra]

The Second Rabbinic Bible edited by Jacob ben Chayyim (1525) was very influential but it wasn't the authority for the KJV. For example, KJV has a reading of Joshua 21:36-37 that departs from ben Chayyim. The KJV's reading is supported by many other editions of the Hebrew Bible that predate the KJV. Ben Chayyim's edition was printed in four large volumes, with the text broken up to two or three verses every two pages, and no chapter or verse numbers; so it would have been very inconvenient and unlikely to be used by the KJV translators. However numerous other Hebrew Bibles were published before the KJV, all of them using a text more-or-less similar to Ben-Chayyim's and some probably worked up with Ben-Chayyim's edition as a basis, with chapter and verses numbers (they first appeared in a Hebrew Bible published by Bomberg in 1547; G.F. Moore, The Vulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible, Jl. of Biblical Literature, 1893, vol. 12, p.76) and printed in more compact volumes than Ben-Chayyim's. I suppose that the KJV translators made use of one volume or two volume editions (possibly more than one edition) of the Hebrew Bible, with numbered chapters and verses, published after Ben-Chayyim's edition.

 

[Steven Avery]

The Second Rabbinic Bible edited by Jacob ben Chayyim (1525) was very influential but it wasn't the authority for the KJV. For example, KJV has a reading of Joshua 21:36-37 that departs from ben Chayyim.

There are additional examples, but this is enough show that the Waite and Price usage of that claim is not scholarship. Shoonra is correct.

James Price played a con on his readers, using an unscholarly, false, errant claim as the basis of his defintion of an emendation.

You could see that he was playing a type of classical ad hominem approach (to the man, allowing the man's argument. not the modern usage), showing the absurdity of the Waite claim. However that does not allow him to change the accepted scholarship definition of emendation.

None dare call that scholarship.
You do not "answer" a scholarship con, you expose it for what it is.

Rick Norris does not understand the accepted use of the term, so he tries to defend the James Price blunder. Or, if he does understand, he hides that knowledge with a probabilism approach

 

[Shoonra]

Riplinger also claimed that the KJV translators used Ben-Chayyim, but more recently she's retracted that assertion.

I would say that, given the reputation of the Ben-Chayyim edition, especially since Ginsburg's work in the late 19th century, it would be easy to assume that such an esteemed edition would have been used for the equally esteemed KJV. But the assumption appears to be wrong. However, I do not infer any dishonest or even unscholarly motive in making that assumption. I think it's a very innocent and attractive mistake.

There is no particular advantage (or disadvantage) for assuming a connection between Ben-Chayyim's edition and the KJV. The KJV OT appears to be based on the Masoretic text, just one very slightly different from Ben-Chayyim's. [Yes, Ben-Chayyim's edition is not THE ONE AND ONLY Masoretic text, nor is the Biblia Hebraica; there is no ONE AND ONLY Masoretic text.]

 

[Steven Avery]

Riplinger also claimed that the KJV translators used Ben-Chayyim, but more recently she's retracted that assertion.

I would say that, given the reputation of the Ben-Chayyim edition, especially since Ginsburg's work in the late 19th century, it would be easy to assume that such an esteemed edition would have been used for the equally esteemed KJV. But the assumption appears to be wrong. However, I do not infer any dishonest or even unscholarly motive in making that assumption.

There is no particular advantage (or disadvantage) for assuming a connection between Ben-Chayyim's edition and the KJV. The KJV OT appears to be based on the Masoretic text, just one slightly different from Ben-Chayyim's. [Yes, Ben-Chayyim's edition is not THE ONE AND ONLY Masoretic text, nor is the Biblia Hebraica; there is no ONE AND ONLY Masoretic text.]

The Ben Hayim text was surely one of many sources used by the learned men of the AV.

The book by David Daiches (1912-2005) goes into their wide variety of Hebrew sources. The King James version of the English Bible: an account of the development and sources of the English Bible of 1611 with special reference to the Hebrew tradition, published in 1941. Likely unreferenced by James Price, who put his posturing over scholarship.

The Waite blunder is part of his attempt to claim specific Greek and Hebrew texts as above and beyond the AV, for which he will never use the word inspired scripture.

So there is an advantage, and a type of dishonesty, since he has kept to this error long after being corrected (e.g. correspondence with Peter Heisey.) If he wrote the truth on this question, he could not claim specific Hebrew editions (e.g. that published by TBS) as the pure and perfect, inspired word of God.

As for Gail Riplinger, it would be helpful to see a before and after.

 

[logos1560]

James Price played a con on his readers, using an unscholarly, false, errant claim as the basis of his defintion of an emendation.

Your allegation is false and improper. You are not entitled to attack the honesty of others. Dr. James D. Price clearly and honestly presented his definition of emendation as a sound, proper, scholarly response to actual KJV-only claims.

 

[Shoonra]

Not so much study has gone into Hebrew Bibles published after Ben-Chayyim's edition (1525) - unlike the several collations of variants in Greek NT editions - so it's very difficult to speculate about which Hebrew Bible edition(s) the KJV committee used. I would hazard a guess that it was a post-Ben-Chayyim edition that had the advantage of chapter and verse numbers and published more compactly than Ben-Chayyim's edition, but I cannot name an edition which fits that description altho several existed by the time the KJV was being worked up.

Riplinger's claim that the KJV used Ben-Chayyim appears in her book, Which Bible is God's Word? (1994) page 47:

The historic ben Chayyim Rabbinic Bible used by the KJV, was altered in 1937 by liberal German theologian Rudolf Kittel ....

... which was quite a trick, considering that Kittel died in 1929,. At one point she was selling copies of the Hebrew Bible edited by Letteris (and published by the B&FBS) and claiming it was Ben-Chayyim's text (which it wasn't), but she stopped doing that some years ago.

 

[Steven Avery]

Your allegation is false and improper. You are not entitled to attack the honesty of others.

Sure I am.

As long as they are not on this forum, I can speak the truth about any dishonest con scholar, including James Price.

He used a false and unscholarly definition of emendation.

See the next post, which has real scholarship that James Price ignored, and I believe deliberately, for the purpose of deception.

 

[Steven Avery]

Not so much study has gone into Hebrew Bibles published after Ben-Chayyim's edition (1525) - unlike the several collations of variants in Greek NT editions - so it's very difficult to speculate about which Hebrew Bible edition(s) the KJV committee used. I would hazard a guess that it was a post-Ben-Chayyim edition that had the advantage of chapter and verse numbers and published more compactly than Ben-Chayyim's edition, but I cannot name an edition which fits that description altho several existed by the time the KJV was being worked up.

If I remember, Daiches says they used many editions.

And I had the book, but my Singapore pastor friend traded for some, so I will have to check.

Speculating without the Daiches book, or quotes, is not very meaningful.

Here is something I wrote up in 2015 about the varied Hebraic sources (not the direct Masoretic mss.)

"The Hebrew items in James's catalogue should therefore be fairly representative of the material available for English translators at this time. .. a cross-section ... surprisingly varied. There are several Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, of which the two most used by Bodleian readers were almost certainly those in the Complutensian and Antwerp poylglots. ... .all the available Hebrew grammars, including those of David Kimchi, Moses Kimchi, Reuchlin, Münster, Bertram and Martinius.. the Aramaic grammar and dictionary of Münster and the Aramaic and Syriac grammar of Tremellius .. copies of Targum Onkelos and Targum Jonathan, both in the original and in the Latin translation (apart from the texts in the polyglots)... fair number of rabbinical works, including some complete Talmud sets ... biblical commentaries of Lyra, Arias Montanus, Conrad Pellican and John Drusius ... Jewish commentaries, those of David Kimchi (several editions), Rashi, Levi ben Gershom, Abarbanel, and a few minor commentators ... Hebrew dictionaries, in addition to those included in the grammars already mentioned and David Kimchi's Liber radicum, there are those of Avernarius, Celepinus, and Pagninus, and the Hebrew-Latin-Italian dictionary of David de Pomis .. minor cabalistic works. ... ample scope for those translating from the original Hebrew. For a complete study of the material available for the A.V. translators, it would be necessary to examine the contents of all contemporary libraries, both public and private. (p. 165-166).

 

[Shoonra]

I read the Daiches book a long time ago. He was speculating on what was available to, and used by, the KJV translators. But he had no tangible evidence for any specific edition, and it's probable that the KJV translators used more than one edition. I think Stephanus published a Hebrew OT but I have never examined it nor seen any description of it. The Bible Society (I forget whether it was the American or the B&FBS) once published its catalog of its collection of printed Bibles, including Hebrew OTs, and I recall that more than 40 complete Hebrew OTs, and a great many Hebrew Pentateuchs and Psalters, as well as some polyglot Bibles, were published between Ben-Chayyim and the KJV.

 

[Steven Avery]

I read the Daiches book a long time ago. He was speculating on what was available to, and used by, the KJV translators. But he had no tangible evidence for any specific edition, and it's probable that the KJV translators used more than one edition. I think Stephanus published a Hebrew OT but I have never examined it nor seen any description of it. The Bible Society (I forget whether it was the American or the B&FBS) once published its catalog of its collection of printed Bibles, including Hebrew OTs, and I recall that more than 40 complete Hebrew OTs, and a great many Hebrew Pentateuchs and Psalters, as well as some polyglot Bibles, were published between Ben-Chayyim and the KJV.

I'll see if I can check the Daiches book for more precise information, it seems to have very good library access on Worldcat, I think my copy went overseas. Another superb book is:

Hebrew in the Church: The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue
Pinchas Lapide
http://books.google.com/books?id=F_mUvs91FxEC

The Ginsburg book:

Introduction to the Massoretico-critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1897
Christian David Ginsburg
https://archive.org/details/introductiontoma00gins

has a wealth of information.

Bernhard Pick has a 4-page review here:

The American Journal of Theology
Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1898), pp. 406-409 (4 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3152780?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Also related

Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible - 2nd edition 1867
Christian David Ginsburg
https://archive.org/details/Massora....Ginsburg.1867./page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater
https://books.google.com/books?id=wMo7AAAAcAAJ

==========================================

You are referencing the second volume of the 2-volume work

British and Foreign Bible Society,
Historical catalog of the printed editions of Holy Scripture, v. 2,



This looks to be the online source, it will talk some checking to find the early Hebrew editions.

Historical catalogue of the printed editions of Holy Scripture in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society
compiled by T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule.
Hathi Trust
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/1299792.html

==========================================

 

[logos1560]

As long as they are not on this forum, I can speak the truth about

The problem is that you are not speaking the truth about a sound Bible scholar.
You attempt to smear him with your non-scholarly, biased, KJV-only opinions.
You likely have not even completely read his book.

 

[logos1560]

Speculating without the Daiches book, or quotes, is not very meaningful.

You often are merely speculating and jumping to wrong conclusions.

 

[Steven Avery]

The problem is that you are not speaking the truth about a sound Bible scholar. You attempt to smear him ...

It is easy to document his blunders, and the basic con he played.

There is more than his book.
And it would be best to have a special thread about his tricky con.

We had some threads on the earlier CARM, this time I will be sure to mirror the info.

 

[Shoonra]

Notwithstanding our differences of opinion, I am grateful to Steven Avery for providing a link to the B&FBS catalog of Bibles; the Hebrew Bibles are in vol. 2, part 2: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015035084386&view=1up&seq=154&skin=2021

I had misremembered that publlisher Plantin (not Stephanus) had printed several Hebrew Bibles.

 

[Steven Avery]

Notwithstanding our differences of opinion, I am grateful to Steven Avery for providing a link to the B&FBS catalog of Bibles; the Hebrew Bibles are in vol. 2, part 2: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015035084386&view=1up&seq=154&skin=2021

I had misremembered that publlisher Plantin (not Stephanus) had printed several Hebrew Bibles.

Thanks.
And I do appreciate that you actually are intent on the scholarship. We first looked up Joshua 21 in the Ben Hayim edition years ago, and I saved the picture, which was sent to me by a European poster on a forum .

 

[praise_yeshua]

Thanks.
And I do appreciate that you actually are intent on the scholarship. We first looked up Joshua 21 in the Ben Hayim edition years ago, and I saved the picture, which was sent to me by a European poster on a forum .

You're hundreds of years late. There are much older Greek sources. I wouldn't call your efforts "scholarship"... It is nothing more than an endless effort to "prop up" your failings in KJVOism.

I'm curious. Just who is listening to you anymore?

 

[Shoonra]

The B&FBS Catalog says of several Hebrew Bibles published long after 1525 that the edition "followed Ben-Chayyim". It is therefore possible that the KJV translators were exposed to the Ben-Chayyim in the form of a subsequent edition attributed to someone else, which had been copied from Ben-Chayyim's excellent rabbinic Bible.

I think it should be said that every Hebrew Bible edition is virtual twin to every other one; the differences are so slight as to be microscopic. The Letteris/Snaith/Koren/Ginsberg/Biblia Hebraica/Jerusalem Crown texts are so similar to each other that it would take considerable expertise and effort to find translatable differences.